Over in the ‘Good Ole USA’, unrest is gaining momentum over Ticketmaster’s proposal of moving to a ‘Paperless Ticket’ Society. The latest dissenting voice comes from ‘The Atlantic’ magazine. The editor raises the issues that everyone could see happening from the first time it began to raise it’s ugly head.

For starters, how would these restrictive paperless tickets work? The Primary ticketing agencies would then have sole control over sales, restricting the transfer of tickets and allowing them to be resold only on their own exchanges (at their highly inflated price). You purchase these paperless tickets with a credit card and must provide the same credit card and a photo ID at the event venue. A swipe of the credit card at the gate produces a slip confirming the location of the reserved seat. The ticket cannot be transferred, sold or given away to another consumer. Either of these systems would make consumers worse off. Consumers would not be able to purchase tickets for friends or family has gifts. Would you have to give YOUR credit card to the people going to the event? The restricted transfer system would allow Ticketmaster to extend its monopoly of ticketing to the secondary market. It would control the fees, prices, and processes for resale of tickets. This would eliminate consumers’ rights to transfer or sell a ticket.

From Ticketmaster’s point of view, it would make great sense. At the moment, they control a large percentage of the World market, this would give them 100% control. This practice  appears to be anti-competitive and would therefore mean them having a monopoly. 

For all their idea of saving a few more trees from being cut down, the underlying fact is, that it is one more way of them cornering the worldwide market.